The corsair was supremely ill at ease, as a man must be who has something to conceal, and who begins to fear that he may have been betrayed. Yet who was there could have betrayed him? But three men aboard that vessel knew his secret—Ali, his lieutenant, Jasper, and the Italian Vigitello. And Sakr-el-Bahr would have staked all his possessions that neither Ali nor Vigitello would have betrayed him, whilst he was fairly confident that in his own interests Jasper also must have kept faith. Yet Marzak’s allusion to that palmetto bale had filled him with an uneasiness that sent him now in quest of his Italian boatswain whom he trusted above all others.
“Vigitello,” said he, “is it possible that I have been betrayed to the Basha?”
Vigitello looked up sharply at the question, then smiled with confidence. They were standing alone by the bulwarks on the waist deck.
“Touching what we carry yonder?” quoth he, his glance shifting to the bale. “Impossible. If Asad had knowledge he would have betrayed it before we left Algiers, or else he would never have sailed without a stouter bodyguard of his own.
“What need of bodyguard for him?” returned Sakr-el-Bahr. “If it should come to grips between us—as well it may if what I suspect be true—there is no doubt as to the side upon which the corsairs would range themselves.”
“Is there not?” quoth Vigitello, a smile upon his swarthy face. “Be not so sure. These men have most of them followed thee into a score of fights. To them thou art the Basha, their natural leader.”
“Maybe. But their allegiance belongs to Asad-ed-Din, the exalted of Allah. Did it come to a choice between us, their faith would urge them to stand beside him in spite of any past bonds that may have existed between them and me.”
“Yet there were some who murmured when thou wert superseded in the command of this expedition,” Vigitello informed him. “I doubt not that many would be influenced by their faith, but many would stand by thee against the Grand Sultan himself. And do not forget,” he added, instinctively lowering his voice, “that many of us are renegadoes like myself and thee, who would never know a moment’s doubt if it came to a choice of sides. But I hope,” he ended in another tone, “there is no such danger here.”
“And so do I, in all faith,” replied Sakr-el-Bahr, with fervour. “Yet I am uneasy, and I must know where I stand if the worst takes place. Go thou amongst the men, Vigitello, and probe their real feelings, gauge their humour and endeavour to ascertain upon what numbers I may count if I have to declare war upon Asad or if he declares it upon me. Be cautious.”
Vigitello closed one of his black eyes portentously. “Depend upon it,” he said, “I’ll bring you word anon.”
On that they parted, Vigitello to make his way to the prow and there engage in his investigations, Sakr-el-Bahr slowly to retrace his steps to the poop. But at the first bench abaft the gangway he paused, and looked down at the dejected, white-fleshed slave who sat shackled there. He smiled cruelly, his own anxieties forgotten in the savour of vengeance.
“So you have tasted the whip already,” he said in English. “But that is nothing to what is yet to come. You are in luck that there is a wind today. It will not always be so. Soon shall you learn what it was that I endured by your contriving.”
Lionel looked up at him with haggard, blood-injected eyes. He wanted to curse his brother, yet was he too overwhelmed by the sense of the fitness of this punishment.
“For myself I care nothing,” he replied.
“But you will, sweet brother,” was the answer. “You will care for yourself most damnably and pity yourself most poignantly. I speak from experience. ’Tis odds you will not live, and that is my chief regret. I would you had my thews to keep you alive in this floating hell.”
“I tell you I care nothing for myself,” Lionel insisted. “What have you done with Rosamund?”
“Will it surprise you to learn that I have played the gentleman and married her?” Oliver mocked him.
“Married her?” his brother gasped, blenching at the very thought. “You hound!”
“Why abuse me? Could I have done more?” And with a laugh he sauntered on, leaving Lionel to writhe there with the torment of his half-knowledge.
An hour later, when the cloudy outline of the Balearic Isles had acquired density and colour, Sakr-el-Bahr and Vigitello met again on the waist deck, and they exchanged some few words in passing.
“It is difficult to say exactly,” the boatswain murmured, “but from what I gather I think the odds would be very evenly balanced, and it were rash in thee to precipitate a quarrel.”
“I am not like to do so,” replied Sakr-el-Bahr. “I should not be like to do so in any case. I but desired to know how I stand in case a quarrel should be forced upon me.” And he passed on.
Yet his uneasiness was no whit allayed; his difficulties were very far from solved. He had undertaken to carry Rosamund to France or Italy; he had pledged her his word to land her upon one or the other shore, and should he fail, she might even come to conclude that such had never been his real intention. Yet how was he to succeed, now, since Asad was aboard the galeasse? Must he be constrained to carry her back to Algiers as secretly as he had brought her thence, and to keep her there until another opportunity of setting her ashore upon a Christian country should present itself? That was clearly impracticable and fraught with too much risk of detection. Indeed, the risk of detection was very imminent now. At any moment her presence in that pannier might be betrayed. He could think of no way in which to redeem his pledged word. He
